A.J. Burnett knows his rebound is important. He’s remodeled a barn at his Maryland home into an indoor pitching facility and is expecting new pitching coach Larry Rothschild to drop by for about a week next month. Cashman said:

“We need A.J. to come back to his previous form, there’s no doubt about it. I believe he will, but we need that to happen, too. We signed A.J. not to pitch toward the back of the rotation, to be a front of the rotation starter. That’s what his abilities are, that’s what he’s capable of doing. That’s what we expect. I believe you’ll see that again, but that means a lot of hard work. I know he’s up for it. I’ve talked to A.J. several times now and met with him in person in Maryland. He knows the responsibility he has to us and this fan base. He’s committed.”

Joba Chamberlain will be in the bullpen for 2011 and the future. Cashman told a reporter to “bite your tongue” when it was suggested that Chamberlain might be called in to fix the rotation problems, and later explained:

“His stuff plays so much more significantly out of the ‘pen. We’ve given him the opportunity to show what he can do out of the rotation, and the velocity dropped. It’s just not the same stuff.”

Food for thought: Even if Pettitte says he’s done pitching before the Yankees get to Spring Training, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that he could “unretire” – hey, Roger Clemens did it – if the Yankees rotation cries out for him. The GM wouldn’t shoot down the suggestion outright, saying, “I don’t want to speculate on stuff like that. I guess we’ll see where we’re sitting in May.”

The Yankees were never close on a deal with Kerry Wood, who wound up taking much less than everyone expected to go back to the Chicago Cubs. Here’s Cashman one more time:

“We never got close because, in talking to his agents, it was going to cost $5.5 million a year or more on a multi-year basis. We weren’t interested in that level. But they said that it was what it was going to take. When we saw he signed with the Cubs at $1.5 million, I called right away and said, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’ They said the Yankee price was the Yankee price; no different than the Red Sox price or the White Sox price. The bottom line is, he moved his family from Phoenix to Chicago and he’s going to be a Cub for life now. This had a lot to do with non-baseball related stuff, too. I can understand that.”

Alex Rodriguez saw Dr. Marc Philippon after the season and was given a clean bill of health on his right hip. The Yankees expect no problems with him being ready for the spring.

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7 Comments

Every day I’m checking in hoping for some good news, a quality starter, a strong 4th outfielder, strong defensively and offensively. At this point everything has gone dead. Not even any rumors of signings or trades. Is this it for the Yankees? Is this how we’re going to go into spring training? If so, I think we’re in trouble depending on Nova and Mitre to be our 4th and 5th starters. And still nothing from Andy. It’s been disappointing given the signings the Red Sox have done in the off season. I hope Cashman is doing more behind he scenes and that before spring training we’re going to be surprised by a couple of big signings. problem is there are no big signings left, only B level pitchers and players. Only minor upgrades and taking risks on players with history of injuries or who are at the end of their career. I think it will be a long and frusrating year! I hope I’m proven wrong.

In what has become an annual tradition, the Yanks were hit a luxury tax bill. They owe $18M for the 2010 season, their lowest since 2003.
To me this is a farce. The luxury tax monies should only be used to try to better the team and not be used to line the pockets of their owners. Otherwise the league is taking money from one rich owner and giving it away to another rich owner who will not use it to benefit MLB.. This is ridiculous and a waste of time because it is not resolving it’s intended purpose, to assist the smaller franchises.

Hope you all had a Very Merry Christmas!
My Christmas wish is for Tex to have a good year and also getting off to a FAST start, Same for Alex. We will need their bats early and often!!….. and we can a use good starter before the season opener.. “GO YANKEES! in 2011″
Let’s get this blog moving again, I’m getting tired of seeing the same stuff…

Thanks Robert and a happy and healthy new year to you and your family and all the bloggers that use this site and that are true Yankee fans. And we’ll all have a happier new year if the Yankees win the world series!

We need Andy P. back. Got to admire him though. Imagine, with the Yankees needing him desperately, he could demand two years probably at 15 million a year. He is considering walking away from it though because of family. I admire him. Mussina walked away from it after 20 win season, so I know it could happen. I hope this doctors report on AROD means he’ll play 150 games, hit .300, and have 40 homers. The Yankees need that production!

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